About Us

norbloc was founded in 2016 by a team with collectively more than 30 years of experience in banking and consulting and equally lengthy experience in blockchain software and hardware development.

The company is a member of the Hyperledger consortium and its executives are thought leaders and regular speakers on the intersection of digital corporate and individual identity and blockchain technology.

norbloc has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden and its Development Hub in Athens, Greece.

Advisory and Executive Board members

Panos Papadopoulos

Panos Papadopoulos is a partner at Marathon VC, an Athens based venture capital investing in tech startups. Prior to joining the finance world, he was a co-founder and CEO at BugSense, a mobile analytics company that was acquired by Splunk Inc. He has invested in more than 20 startups alongside investors like GV, DFJ, GE, Goldman Sachs, Social Capital and others. Panos loves crypto-currencies, IoT, and open source infrastructure and occasionally finds the time to write a few lines of code.

Panos holds a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Athens University of Economics and Business and an M.Sc. degree in Digital Currencies from the University of Nicosia.

ASTYANAX KANAKAKIS

Astyanax has spent more than 12 years in Finance and Consulting, most recently as Associate Partner in McKinsey & Company, specializing in banking and corporate finance. He was previously Chief Commercial Officer in KnCGroup, the bitcoin blockchain pioneer, and Chairman of the Board in XBT Provider, the global leader in cryptocurrency ETNs.

Astyanax holds a BSc. In Computer Science and Electronic Engineering from University College London, an MSc in Advanced Computing from Imperial College, an MSc in Information Systems Management from London School of Economics and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

CHRISTOF GABRIEL MAETZE

Christof brings enormous banking experience to the team. He has held held senior management positions in Commerzbank, Dresdner Bank and HypoVereinsbank (now UniCredit Bank AG) in Germany and Singapore. From 2007 to 2015 he was Member of Commerzbank’s Executive Management Board with responsibilities including the global Financial Institutions business of Commerzbank. Prior to this he was Global Head of Financial Institutions at Dresdner Bank. Currently, he is a member of the General Council of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund supervising the state holdings in Greek banks.

Mr. Maetze holds a BSc. from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and participated in various management programs at Harvard Business School, INSEAD etc.

Aris Xenofontos

Aris is brings a combination of advisory, operational and investment experience in technology and financial services. Prior to becoming a Principal at Santander InnoVentures in 2017, Aris worked for Thomson Reuters where he co-founded the leading institutional KYC service business, Org ID, and led projects in corporate innovation and investments and the launch of several industry solutions. As part of J.P. Morgan’s Investment Banking team, he has also advised private equity firms on M&A and financing transactions.

Aris started his career working for large and start-up Tech companies in various capacities within implementation projects and product development. Aris holds an MBA from IE Business School in Madrid, an MSc in Information Systems from Royal Holloway, University of London and a BSc in Mathematics from the National University of Athens, Greece.

JAN BELFRAGE

Jan contributes lengthy and valuable experience from both the customer and institution side of the KYC process. He has held several Finance Director and Treasurer positions in large corporates, including SKF and Aga. More recently, Jan was the Head for Nordics in Citibank and consecutively for Credit Agricole. He has held several Board positions, including at SEK Bank in Sweden.

Jan holds an MSc degree in finance from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Management and Team

ASTYANAX KANAKAKIS

Co-Founder and CEO

Astyanax has spent more than 12 years in Finance and Consulting, most recently as Associate Partner in McKinsey & Company, specializing in banking and corporate finance. He was previously Chief Commercial Officer in KnCGroup, the bitcoin blockchain pioneer, and Chairman of the Board in XBT Provider, the global leader in cryptocurrency ETNs.

Astyanax holds a BSc. In Computer Science and Electronic Engineering from University College London, an MSc in Advanced Computing from Imperial College, an MSc in Information Systems Management from London School of Economics and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

VITALII DEMIANETS

Co-Founder and Lead Developer

Vitalii is a full stack software architect, with a specialization in blockchain protocols and embedded software.

Previously, Vitalii was the lead developer of KnCMiner, and prior to that spent 15 years as the Head embedded software engineer at telecom equipment manufacturer Factor-SPE in Ukraine.

Vitalii holds a MSc in Applied Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT)

FANNY MODIN

Business Development Manager – M. East

Fanny comes from an investor relations and communications background and has spent most of her career working in the Middle East. Prior to working with norbloc, Fanny was acting Head of IR and Corporate Communications at SHUAA Capital, a publicly listed financial services firm headquartered in Dubai.

Fanny is also an experienced content writer with a financial journalist background from Thomson Reuters. She has generated and edited content for companies across various industry sectors and financial institutions. Fanny holds a BA in European Studies from the University of London.

RAFAEL SAMUEL-LAJEUNESSE

Senior Advisor (UK)

Rafael most recently was a Senior Portfolio Manager at J.P. Morgan, an Advisor to the top management team of Credit Suisse Private Bank and a Management Consultant with McKinsey. He has extensive experience in Investment banking and private equity in the US and Europe, and is currently on the board of ETFmatic.com and Pulsarconnect. Rafael is also the founder of EAM Ltd., an investment and advisory firm based in London.

Rafael holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, MSc from EM Lyon (France) and Solvay (Belgium). He also holds Series 7 (USA) and CF-30 (UK) registrations.

CHRISTIAN WESSELS

Senior Advisor (MEA)

Christian has more than 16 years experience in financial services. He is currently the deputy CEO of an industrial conglomerate in MEA as well as a Bain & Co Advisor. Previously, Christian was Partner at Bain & Co, based in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has +10 years experience of serving and leading financial institutions in the MEA region and was elected Young Global Leader in the World Economic Forum.

Christian holds a Dipl.-Kfm. in Business Administration from Universität zu Köln.

Dimitris Magdalinos

Head of Engineering

Dimitris is an experienced tech manager with a hands on attitude. Before joining norbloc his career took him from being part of a global initiative for achieving STP and optimising processes and procedures to achieve T+1 trade settlements for investment banking giant UBS Warburg to leading a tech team for startup CITYFAB, including anything else in between.

Dimitris holds a Pg Dip in Business Systems Analysis and Design from City University London and a BSc in Business Information Systems from Cardiff Metropolitan University.

PETER SAVELIEV

Database Architect

Peter is an enterprise software architect with more than 12 years enterprise software development in companies including Ericsson, Redhat and Motorola. Most recently Peter worked with OpenStack, an open-source software platform for cloud computing at Ericsson.

Peter holds a BSc from Saint-Petersburg State University.

DEVELOPMENT TEAM

We are norbloc

Our developers have a collective 30 years of pure blockchain protocol and application development in some of the leading global blockchain processors and development companies.